Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our our US readers! We'll be relaxing with too much turkey pie our families after a super-busy time launching cool new stuff. But as you know, there's always more we're up to, so stay tuned.

via blog.ruhlman.com

SF Django Meetup @ Six Apart's Office - October 21

Six Apart has embraced Django in a big way with the release of Motion and various other Python projects on GitHub. This month we are hosting the SF Django Meetup at our office in San Francisco, on Wednesday October 21, at 6:30pm. Come by for our presentation on recent contributions to the Django community:

1. An introduction to Motion. What is it? What can you do with it? Also an introduction to the platform.
2. Information about the underlying cloud services that Motion is built on, and tips and hints on how you can build your own apps and services on this platform too--all in Python and Django.

If you plan to attend, please confirm your attendance. The meetup starts at 6:30pm at 548 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107.

TypePad Celebrates "Take Your Dog To Work Day"

Did you know that today is Take Your Dog To Work Day?

The Humane Society of the United States are proud supporters of Take Your Dog To Work Day. The organization's President and CEO Wayne Pacelle is an active blogger who says that having their dogs around at the office "reminds us of who we're working for".  Established in 1954 and blogging since 2007, the Humane Society advocates sensible ways to help animals all across the country, from shelters to Congress, and makes the world a more humane place for all of us.  Over on the Humane Society's TypePad blog they're even holding a caption contest for the hard-at-work Piper (an adorable chihuahua mix).

Almost every day is Take Your Dog To Work Day here at Six Apart, as you can see below.

(L to R) Ben and Maddy, Staci and Jax, Sergeja and Sushi, Steve and Rudy:

Penelope Trott takes Rudy for a spin while Mom and Dad work:

Did you celebrate Take Your Dog To Work Day today?

Team TypePad at the AIDS/LifeCycle 7

Two of our Six Apart staffers rode in the recent AIDS/LifeCycle 7, a 545 mile fundraising ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and we're so proud of them we wanted to tell you their story.

TypePad has a history with the ALC event, with this being staffer Jamison's third ride and also (thanks to Jamison) the third year the event has been chronicled on the ALC TypePad blog.  With over 3,000 participants (2,500 cyclists and 500 roadies) this was the first year the event actually had to close registration because they got so many riders! 

On the ALC7 blog, five participants reported from the event through personal stories, daily video podcasts and photo albums.  The ride days were long, anywhere from 40-100 miles a day for seven days, but as you can see the roadies took care to offset the grueling days with a lot of humor at each rest stop. 

It was Six Apart staffer Alex's first ride, and although dehydration downed him on day three, he rallied and finished and has already signed up for next year!  Jamison used Blog It to post updates from the road all week to his blog and to Twitter, as his only internet access was via his iPhone.  "Blog It was awesome," said Jamison, "especially when Twitter was down because it saved the updates and posted them when it was back up!"

This year's ride raised a staggering $11.6 million at ride out, but donations are still coming in.  Each rider is required to raise $2,500 minimum to participate, and Alex rang in at $3,655 while Jamison raised $5,210.  Together Team TypePad raised $8,865!  If you feel compelled, you can still make donations to their fundraising efforts (maybe even help them break $10,000?)

Donate to Jamison's campaign (he's on the left)
Donate to Alex's campaign (he's on the right)

A Great Place To Work

Huge thanks to Valleywag, Silicon Valley's tech gossip rag, for including Six Apart in their Top 10 Best Workspaces last week.  After perusing the Office Snapshots site, they chose us for our high ceilings, exposed brick and the nook we use as a bicycle garage:

Photos by Stephen.  See more at Office Snapshots.

If you're looking for a great place to work, we are hiring in our San Francisco, New York and Paris locations.   Check out our job listings and come join us!

Photos from the Web 2.0 Expo & South Park Crawl

The Six Apart staff had a great time meeting everyone during the Web 2.0 Expo, especially during the mini-golf tournament held in our office during the South Park Crawl.  Thanks to everyone who stopped by, and for those of you who couldn't make it, here are some photos:

Nick, Bryan, JoAnn, David and Jane at our Web 2.0 Expo booth:

For the party, 6A staffers Stephane and Rahul doubled as deejays:

Everyone ate, drank and played:

Guests enjoyed the creative setups around each stop on the golf course:

Just follow the green tape and you could win a prize:

Calipidder stopped by and got a hole in one!

And of course, after it was all over, someone couldn't resist hacking the green tape to make everyone laugh:

We promise no one was harmed during the making of our golf party.  Thanks to Jamison, Garth, Yann, Calipidder and Mark for the photos!

Happy April Fool's Day!

We decided to spare our TypePad members from any April Fool's ideas we might have dreamed up, but there are still plenty of shenanigans going on at Six Apart HQ (photos courtesy of Garth Webb).

Here's what Ben Trott, our co-founder and CTO, found when he arrived at his office this morning:

After he wedged his way inside the office, he attempted to sit at his desk to get some work done:

That really wasn't, er, working, so he had no choice but to let the balloons spill out into the hall:

And share the fun with everyone else.

Did you get fooled today?  Tell us about it in the comments!